Unfinished Work

We ate dinner with all three phones on the table.

Mum had made pasta with a sauce from a jar and the last of the frozen peas. Sam grated cheese into a bowl with an intensity that suggested it was a task requiring his entire personality. I set out plates, moved one because it had a chip, then moved it back because the chip was on the edge and we had been eating from it for eight years.

Nobody asked how anyone's day had been.

Halfway through dinner, Sam said he had spoken to a police officer. He was going in the next morning to explain about the camera.

“Good,” Mum said.

“I don't know what happens after.”

“We'll find out.”

“They might charge me.”

“We'll find out,” she repeated.

I watched a pea travel around the edge of my plate under the pressure of my fork.

“Mum,” I began.

Both of them looked at me.

My phone rang.

It was the officer arranging to collect the drive. He could send someone to the house, he said, or I could bring it to the centre, where they were still gathering information. I chose the centre before I had properly considered why. Perhaps because movement felt like progress. Perhaps because I could already tell myself that I would speak to somebody while I was there.

Mum offered to come.

“It's five minutes on my bike.”

“I know how far it is.”

“I'm just dropping off a drive.”

She looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Straight back.”

I put the drive in a padded envelope and wrote my name, phone number and the names of the two files on the front. I included a note explaining that one was an edited highlights film and the other was a silent viewing copy of the full camera shot. I wrote down the location of the original card as accurately as I could: equipment crate, collected by Finn Sayer for return after the event.

On a second piece of paper, I began to write that I needed to correct something I'd said earlier.

I got as far as I said my brother.

Then I heard Sam moving downstairs and folded the paper into my notebook instead.

The centre looked different at night without an event inside it. The windows reflected the car park. A single strip light burned over the entrance, attracting moths that kept striking the plastic cover with little dry sounds.

A young constable took the drive and asked me to confirm my contact details. He read the note, nodded and put the envelope into a larger bag.

“Someone may come back with questions about the recording.”

“Okay.”

“Have you remembered anything else?”

I felt, absurdly, that he had read the unfinished sentence in my notebook.

“I'm not sure.”

“Write down what you do remember. You can call the number you've been given.”

I had become very good at being given numbers.

Behind him, the centre was settling into an uneasy sort of night. Clare Sayer stood in the hall speaking quietly to Judith. Two volunteers were taking down the remaining auction signs. On a table by the office, someone had made piles of leftover programmes, donation forms, name badges and pens.

My camera bag sat underneath it.

I'd forgotten it in the rush after the event. Finn had texted that morning to say he had put it aside, but I hadn't gone looking for it because the missing originals were in the separate crate. Now I pulled it out and checked the compartments. Lens cloth, battery charger, two empty card wallets, the little screwdriver I used for the tripod plate.

In the front pocket was the running order Rowan had handed me on Friday afternoon.

He had brought it upstairs himself, climbing the balcony steps two at a time, and held it out without quite looking at me.

“Judith changed the speeches,” he'd said.

“Again?”

“Apparently the councillor has more to say.”

“That's never good.”

He had almost smiled. I remembered that now: the beginning of a smile that neither of us had trusted enough to finish.

I unfolded the paper.

The printed schedule was covered in changes. A band name crossed out, a microphone number circled, a warning in Rowan's neat handwriting that the projector needed five minutes to cool before anyone unplugged it. At the bottom, beneath the final thank-you speech, he had written a name and a time.

J. Lane — Monday 9.00. Restricted account. Ask before H.

There was a line underneath, half hidden by a crease.

Not the same pot.

I looked towards the office.

Judith had her back to the hall. Clare was speaking, one hand resting lightly on Judith's arm. The words weren't clear, but the tone was: this is what must happen next.

I could have put the sheet back in my bag. I could have handed it to the constable and said I didn't know whether it mattered. Instead I waited until Clare left and took it to Judith.

“Was Rowan meeting you on Monday?”

She looked at the paper before she looked at me.

“Yes. We had several things to discuss after the fundraiser.”

“What’s a restricted account?”

“A finance term.”

“I guessed that part.”

Judith's face tightened. “Some donations are given for a particular purpose. You can't simply spend them on anything you choose.”

“Did Rowan think you had?”

“That is not what I said.”

She held out her hand. I gave her the sheet because it seemed rude not to, then immediately regretted it.

Judith read the note twice.

“Rowan was helping organise the donor records,” she said. “He was thorough. Sometimes a little too thorough about things he didn't entirely understand.”

It was a familiar description. Adults used it when a young person asked a question that required more than a reassuring answer.

“What does H mean?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“The Harcourt bursary?”

Her eyes moved to mine.

“Why would you think that?”

“Clare mentioned Finn was applying. Denise thought Rowan had said something about it.”

“The centre hosts the presentation. We aren't responsible for the selection. That's administered separately.”

“I wasn't saying you were.”

Judith folded the paper along its old crease, then unfolded it again.

“Bea, I know you're worried. We all are. But looking through somebody's notes and inventing difficulties isn't helpful.”

“I didn't invent the note.”

“No.” She closed her eyes briefly. “No, you didn't. I'm sorry.”

I held out my hand for the running order.

For a second she didn't move. Then she gave it back.

“Please let the police decide what they need.”

“I will.”

This time, I did. I went back to the constable, explained where the sheet had come from, and asked him to add it to the material I'd brought. He took it, thanked me and didn't look particularly astonished. Perhaps every missing person left a trail of unfinished ordinary work. Perhaps a note about an account was just a note about an account.

As I turned to leave, Councillor Tarrant came through the entrance carrying a paper bag from the bakery.

“Any progress?” he asked the constable.

“Nothing I can share, sir.”

“Of course. Of course.”

Tarrant saw me and gave the smile he used in photographs. It was a good smile, practised without appearing entirely false.

“Bea, isn't it? Our filmmaker.”

“Just Bea.”

“Yes.” He looked faintly puzzled by the distinction. “Dreadful business. Your generation has enough on its shoulders.”

He said it as if my generation were a single overburdened person he had met at a conference.

“Judith in the office?”

I pointed.

He thanked me and went in. Before the door closed, I heard him say that they should think carefully about the effect on future bookings.

I stood in the hall for a moment, angry without knowing where to put it.

On the wall opposite the office hung a large photograph of the lido in its first summer. People crowded around the pool in clothes that looked impractical for water. In the corner, a boy had been caught mid-jump, knees tucked up, face turned away. Somebody had written the opening date beneath the frame in fading ink.

I had learned to swim there, in the last few years before it closed. Sam had stood at the shallow end and promised not to move away. Then he had moved away, slowly, so I'd have to swim farther to reach him. I'd been furious when I realised. Mum said afterwards that he had done it because he knew I could manage.

At the time, I had believed that made it all right.

Outside, I unlocked my bike and checked my phone.

No news about Rowan. Three new theories in the group chat. A photograph of the coach depot somebody had found online, although it showed nothing except buses. One person had written that Rowan had always wanted attention. Six others were telling them to shut up.

I typed a reply, deleted it and put the phone away.

At home, Mum was sitting on the sofa with the television muted. Sam had gone upstairs. A half-folded pile of laundry occupied the cushion beside her.

“Everything handed over?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Come here a minute.”

I sat beside the laundry.

She picked up one of Sam's T-shirts, shook it out and folded it with the sleeves tucked in exactly as she always did.

“I know you're angry with him,” she said.

“I am.”

“So am I.”

She put the T-shirt on the pile.

“But you don't have to choose between being angry and loving somebody.”

I looked at the silent television. A presenter stood in a field gesturing at a row of sheep. The subtitles were several seconds behind his mouth.

“What if you helped them do something stupid?” I asked.

Mum turned towards me.

“What do you mean?”

I opened my mouth.

Her phone rang on the arm of the sofa. Denise.

Mum picked it up immediately, and I stood before she could tell me to stay.

“Bea—”

“It's okay. Talk to her.”

I went upstairs with my camera bag against my hip.

This time there had been no interruption I couldn't have waited through. I had chosen it. I knew the difference, even then.